We are all living in a magical time to be a college football fan in the state of Michigan. The results on the gridiron for the Michigan State Spartans have been underwhelming. But, from the point of view of pure entertainment, it has been a wild and entertaining ride. College football is the best soap opera on the radio, television or any platform right now.

This season has had so many twists and turns. We have seen sexual harassment scandals, gaslighting, cheating scandals, lies, board room squabbles, more gaslighting, information leaks, kindergarten-level tattling, conspiracy theories and the list goes on and on. We have seen the horizon go vertical more than once over the past 10 weeks. I don't know where we are anymore...or how...or why...or if. I just don't have an answer.

As for Michigan State, by the time Saturday rolls around, it will have been seven days since the Spartans enjoyed their first win of the Big Ten season, a 20-17 victory over Nebraska. Based on the opponent this week, it is very unlikely that the Spartans will return to East Lansing with a win.

The No. 1-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes have shown signs of weakness. OSU appears more mortal than it has in years. It is not a stretch to say that Michigan State had a much better first half against Rutgers than did the Buckeyes. If you are looking for signs of hope, look no further than that.

Is there a chance that Michigan State parties like it was 1998 and upsets the No. 1 Buckeyes in Columbus? Of course there is. There is also a chance that next week Nick Saban will announce that he is leaving Alabama and returning to East Lansing to coach the Spartans until they carry his lifeless body out of the Skandalaris Football Center. (Raise the flag!).

The most likely result is that the Spartans will pick up their seventh loss of the season this year and the focus will turn fully on finding the next head football coach in East Lansing. Some will argue that the leadership at Michigan State never seem to get something like a high-level coaching search done the right way. I happen to believe that there is time (and a process in place) to get a good one.

Michigan State still has the history, infrastructure and resources to be a contender every year, even in the new and expanded Big Ten. The next staff might just be sleeping on a time bomb that is ready to go off. Spartan fans have been patiently waiting for the light to come. As I have said before, brighter days are on the horizon.

The Michigan State Spartans and the Ohio State Buckeyes have met a total of 51 times going back to the first meeting in 1912. The Buckeyes lead the series, 36-15. Michigan State won five of the first seven meetings, but the Spartans have only 10 wins against the Buckeyes since 1967.

Under Mark Dantonio, Michigan State won three games in the series in 2011, 2013 and 2015. But the Spartans have lost seven-straight against the Buckeyes, with the smallest margin of victory in the last six games being 20 points in 2018.

This streak of blowouts also means that Michigan State has struggled against the spread versus Ohio State. Since 2003, the Spartans are just 5-13 and have not covered since losing by a single point in 2016.

As for this year, Michigan State will arrive in Columbus at a 31-point underdog. That is the biggest spread on record, back to at least 1997. Notably, this spread surpasses the previous record of 27.5 points in Columbus in 1998. Older Michigan State fans will remember what happened in that game.

The odds that the Spartans will enjoy a similarly shocking upset are just 1.5%. Since 2001, I count only seven total upsets when the spread opened at 31 points or higher. The most recent and notable example was in 2021 when Bowling Green (+31) upset Minnesota.

In summary, the odds of a Michigan State win are very small. It would roughly equivalent to a No. 16 seed beating a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Unfortunately, the Spartans are not going to be facing a Purdue basketball team with a bunch of underclassmen guards.

While there is a chance that the Spartans can hang around for a little while in Columbus, it is more likely that the afterglow of last week's win over the Cornhuskers does not last long. My computer's official prediction is a final score of Ohio State 39 and Michigan State 5, but that it too weird so, let's go with Ohio State 42, Michigan State 6.

Let's now move to a review of the upcoming action in the Big Ten in Week 11 where all 14 teams are in action this week. Table 1 below includes my projected scores, the opening point spread and the computers' projected point differentials for all seven games.

Note that all rankings referenced below for each team are my computer's power rankings and not the most recent College Football Playoff rankings.